I can't recall the last time I spoke to my dad for more than 10 minutes. Last Saturday broke the record.

We had lunch over at Downtown East It was the first lunch I had with him in months. My sister was there as well. So there were we, the three of us, stuffing our faces with food at a Sakura buffet. I had a bucket of salmon sashimi while the other two had a wider variety. She is more like my dad than I am.

He is 5'5. He has always been skinny and in recent years has began sporting a hunched back and a small belly. His outfit of choice is always a pair of black pants with a collared shirt and black shoes. I have never seen him in anything else other than this when we head out.

We talked about plans for the future. How he would be shifting to a new flat next March. How he should start a consulting business and service to leverage on his decades of experience in quality control and engineering. My insistent attempts at battering down his walls of resistance accumulated from years of negativity, self-doubt, and fear towards the idea. My instruction to my sister to keep persuading him to go for this route because at his age, a job can never be the solution for a way to foot the bills.

He is my dad, but I never want to be like him.

On occasion I find myself very envious of guys who aspired to be like their dads. Dad was their role model and figure. My dad was, in some way, a role model too, but from a different angle: He represents everything that I do not want to be. Perhaps this is more powerful in conveying action in me as compared to ol' dad having a positive role image.

We boarded the train to town after lunch. We sat side by side. I noticed in the reflection of the opposing windows how small he looked. I turned and realised that he had grown older since the last time I saw him. I saw weariness, fatigue, and no small degree of pain. I saw grey hair. I saw loneliness. I felt myself tearing up a little then. I wanted to reach over and tell him, "Dad, I'm sorry for all the times I pissed you off.", but I held back. Wouldn't do to start bawling like a kid in the train carriage.

He got off the train earlier than me. Before he left, I told him that I'd accompany him this year on his annual ritual to St. Andrew's Cathedral on Christmas eve. Usually I'll avoid going with him. This year, I'll stay with him till past midnight before I head off to dance and party. But I'm certain the image of him walking off alone in the distance will stick with me for some time. 

I feel so sorry for him and his loneliness that it's almost enough to make me want to take him over to friggin' China and get him a beautiful young girl for companionship.

I need to take him out more often. He likes walking around the streets of his childhood home. That will be the next place I accompany him around. And then, on an empty street, I'll tell him how sorry I am for everything and cry my eyes out to him.

"Dad, I'm sorry I was angry at you for so long."

Maybe he'll cry too, and then we'll hug on the street like father and son again.

So much has been happening over the past couple of months that I don't, and wouldn't, have the time to write everything down even if I was succinct about it. It'd suffice to say that Life has been overwhelming at times, massively impactful at some, challenging at many, but definitely enriching in each and every single incident.

I have absorbed a lot, and want to get even more. Steve Jobs emphasised the importance of staying hungry; I subscribe to that mantra.

I feel very fortunate looking at where I am today, but I will not rest on my laurels. Someone once said that in Life, you're either heading up or sliding down; there's never a single point in time where you're standing still. I know which direction I'd rather take. The more I know, the more I realise I don't know, and I intend to keep it that way until the Grim Reaper decides to take a piss on me.

Besides, someone still owes me scandalous pictures involving some lip action and two girls. Pfft!

Having increased my intake of carbs for the past month, I woke up to the stunning realisation a mere two minutes ago that my cheeks are brutally fat.

This. Totally. Sucks.

But it's really my fault; I was never that carb tolerant to be with. While guy A could still get hyperactive after recess time way back in secondary school, I was struggling to stay awake against the snooze devil, even though we both ate the same amount of rice and dishes. I'd be trying my darnest to listen to my geography teacher's monotonous droning and failing terribly at it. The only thing that perked me up was the occasional random hard-on. At 16, they came as casually as sales personnel asking for donations for charitable causes on the street.

The blood sugar collapse creeps up steadily on you; One minute you're feeling fine, fast forward another and you find yourself yawning your head off and wondering just what the heck is wrong with your droopy eyes.

In any case, I'm going low-carb now.

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Whilst rushing for class a couple of hours ago, I passed by an ice-cream stand where there was a short queue of people getting cones. There were these two dudes, and just as I turned my head and looked at them, dude A leaned towards dude B and licked the latter's ice cream cone. This completely flabbergasted me, mainly because this was the first time in my life I was witnessing such a fine moment. It was truly mind-boggling.

Afterwards, virtually every straight guy I spoke to said that they would never do something like that, even if it was with a close friend. Heck, everybody agreed that they would just switch cones. Even the women I polled commented that this was an oddity.

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Writing is like a girl who gets freaky with you for a night and then turns Catholic the morning after. I look back at what I wrote at seven this morning and I think to myself, "Goddamn, what rubbish."